Polestar 5 vs BMW Alpina B4

What's the difference?

It’s finally here.

The Polestar 5 electric grand tourer (GT) has officially launched in Australia six years after the original Precept concept was revealed.

Thankfully many of the concept’s design cues have carried over to the production model and it continues Polestar’s history of offering GT cars - its first was the limited-production Polestar 1 which was only sold in left-hand-drive markets.

Like all current Polestars, the Polestar 5 is all-electric and competes against the likes of the Porsche Taycan and Audi e-tron GT.

We’ve already driven the Polestar 5 overseas, but this is the first time we’re experiencing it on local soil. Read on to see how it fares.

If you're looking for a sleek, two-door coupe with a sparkling chassis, rear-wheel drive and a charismatic turbo straight-six, BMW has you covered with about eight choices. That should be that, then. But wait. There's more. 

Since 1965, Alpina - the name of a resurrected a typewriter company - has collaborated closely with BMW to produce distinct, high performance Alpina-badged cars. It actually started with a Weber dual-carburettor unofficial conversion for the BMW 1500 in 1962 and over the years built into a racing operation winning championships and races like the Spa 24 Hours.

Alpina returned to Australian shores in 2017 after a long hiatus with a new range including the BMW 4 Series based B4. Not long after, BMW updated the 4 in what it calls LCI (Lifecycle Impulse), so Alpina followed suit with a price drop, new gear and called it the B4 S.